This invention relates to tropospheric volume elements enriched with vital elements and/or protective substances as well as the procedures for their production and application. The term “vital elements” applies to all matter supporting the development of life within the earth's biosphere and the term “protective substances” means all those substances which contribute directly or indirectly to the prevention of harmful effects on the earth's biosphere and in particular on man.
Tropospheric volume elements according to the invention are enriched with vital elements and/or protective substances. Tropospheric volume elements in the form of clouds which contain contaminants and which can escape from industrial facilities due to damage or malfunction are enriched with protective substances which prevent the organism from taking in radioactive elements and minimize the extent of the area affected by the clouds and possess additional warning and identification properties.
Enriched tropospheric volume elements may offer numerous advantageous effects, the most important of which are:
Climate cooling and climate stabilization
Increase of food production
Production of methane hydrate and kerogen as renewable energy sources
Reduction in all sorts of air pollutants
Increase of precipitation and
Reduction of the extent of damage and the number of victims due to nuclear reactor accidents.
The components of the environment include the populated and the unpopulated parts of the earth's surface and neighboring areas, including the atmosphere, the surface of the earth, ground, sediment, sediment surface, stretches of water and ecological systems. These components are linked with each other by cycles of material exchange which are all connected to each other by partly instable flux exchange balances. Consequently, the complex system may exist in differing, more or less stable phases. Relatively minor causes may trigger off the transition from one phase to another. Climate phase transitions are recognized as being particularly disadvantageous. The geological climate history of the ice age has shown us that the transition of the earth's climate from the ice age's cold climate to the warm age's hot climate may only take a few years to be completed.
At present, we are experiencing the transition from the moderate to the hot climate phase. This is a result of the rise in the quantities of greenhouse gases methane and CO2 which has been caused by man since the early 19th century, whereby the methane content growth is also coupled with the troposphere's diminishing power of self-purification. The increase in methane in the troposphere is also coupled with the decomposition of solid methane hydrate in the tundra moor sediments and in the ocean sediments to free quantities of methane due to the rise in temperature.
There has been a demand for large-scale geo-engineering projects (P. J. Crutzen, Nature, Vol. 415 of Jan. 3, 2002) for a lasting correction of the climate development in the near future. There have been various proposals on how to prevent the transition to the hot climate phase; the enrichment of the stratosphere with aerosols with sulfur dioxide (M. Budyko) or soot (P. J. Crutzen) is supposed to cool the troposphere. The costs for such a project are estimated to be more than 20 billion US $ (Graedel, T. E., Crutzen, P. J.: Chemie der Atmosphäre, Spektrum Ahademischer Verlag, Heidelberg/Berlin/Oxford [1994], pages 457, 458). At present, attempts are being made to come to international agreements to reduce the release of carbon dioxide by limiting the combustion of fossil energy sources. However, the attempts to gain acceptance of the so-called Kyoto protocol have shown that such a measure cannot be put into practice world-wide.
Without intervention, the warming of the troposphere will continue. The result will be an increase in food scarcity and an increase in the area of land which is salted and devastated. The continuous growth of the world's population will cause a rise in distribution conflicts. Overgrazing, fire clearance and ground erosion will accelerate this negative development. In spite of an increase in the utilization of sea area for fish farming, over-fishing of the oceans has already prompted a dramatic recession in food production.
In the near future, fossil fuel resources are also expected to run short. A compensation by extension of alternative energy sources and energy-saving measures cannot be enforced in the world's poorer regions due to the required investments.
The Chernobyl disaster was triggered off due to the nuclear fission of nuclear fuel in the reactor running out of control; the cloud of radioactive flue gas released by the nuclear reaction and the fire the nuclear reaction caused in the reactor and moderator unit struck large parts of Europe. Terror acts, such as crashing civilian large capacity aircraft onto the towers in New York, have shown that catastrophes repeat themselves. Safety scenarios which have not considered this, have since lost their validity. In all of the nuclear power plants world-wide, there are no safety installations which are capable of reducing the spread of radioactive clouds, which can occur when a nuclear reactor runs out of control, which can limit their effects and which can mark the emission visibly for everybody at the affected spots. The argument that nuclear power plants will be put out of operation world-wide within a few decades is unacceptable, as even the German authorities have guaranteed the operation of at least some nuclear power plants for more than thirty years to come. In Europe, the erection of new nuclear power plants continues, the latest examples of which are the nuclear power plant built in Temelin and another planned in Finland. There are also no safety installations for the treatment and identification of toxic clouds in those industrial facilities which handle highly toxic materials or dangerous microbes.